Post by Dan White on May 30, 2009 19:48:09 GMT -5
I guess I made MASAKI because I needed to flex my creativity. Now, Dan White isn't truly me, and as a result I wish I'd given him a different name, but he is heavily influenced by me. I enjoy reading autobiographical accounts about football hooliganism. I can relate to his baby issues. I enjoy a good drink or two. But Dan White the character and Dan White the holder are two different people.
I wanted MASAKI to come in, I guess as a predecessor to Josh Robertson's gimmick. He would dislike the glamourisation of professional wrestling in the United States, and vow to change the way ACW was led. I guess I just made the character really briefly though, and although I believe his stuff was the best stuff I'd written to that date, I didn't give him enough character, or enough of a backstory. He was basically just a Japanese wrestler in a mask who wanted to change the USA.
I believe it was Senator who provided me with an original name, but I researched that name and it turned out to be a Japanese gay porn star. Senator insists that it was just a freaky coincidence, but I think we can have our assumptions, heh. But seriously, Senator helped me a lot with creating the character, and the first few segments that I wrote were really hard hitting. I would interrupt ACW's more lavish characters like RDK, and accuse them of ruining wrestling for what it truly is.
But then the kettle went off the boil with my feud with Jonny Spade. Now my feud with Jonny was played out in exactly the way I didn't want MASAKI to be portrayed as. On the other hand, it was one of the most fun feuds I've ever had the pleasure of writing for. What essentially ended up being like a Dan White-type of character in a mask was such a fun thing to write for. But it gave me the opportunity to write MASAKI into a comedy-esque character. Not fully blown, but whilst he would consistently preach the word of Puroresu, he would actually unintentionally be making people laugh. I think this was compounded with him renaming the Entertainment Title the Puro Title, in a Street Fight of all things.
My next feud would bring together two ideas that I really wanted to use in ACW, but I think when I got the chance to use them it was in haste, somewhat. I brought two fellow newcomers, Jason Freeman and Christopher Bryant (aka Wayde/about 50 other characters) and engaged in a feud with them. Now my memories of the feud is a bit blotchy, but I seem to remember that Bryant wasn't all that active, which messed up the plans a bit. Nonetheless, I pretty much wrote his character for the next couple of months. At Yoko's named PPV (as all November PPVs are named by the champion of the time), we would have three Round Robin matches, with the winner winning the Entertainment Title.
Originally, we weren't going to have a match at the PPV, which I believe is called something like “Super Happy Fun Vagina Day Extravaganza” or something to that. A lot of people opposed a name like that, and neither myself nor Freeman were a fan of it. So we instead had the match so it was broadcast live from Japan, MASAKI's home nation, and show how it should be done. I won the Round Robin, and then it went on to Winter Discontent, where we had a Triple Threat Ironman match. The rules were that you gain 2 points for every pinfall, whilst the pinned person lost a point. I won 1-0-0 eventually, keeping my title.
But still, I wasn't that happy with MASAKI. I then agreed to drop the title to Freeman, in an undignified manner sure, but I wanted to keep MASAKI undefeated. I was then back to not writing, as I was going through a tricky stage in my life (although I won't bore you with details). Basically, ACW wasn't giving me the release I needed. Alternatively, nightclubs were beginning to give me that release, as I was turning 18 shortly and beginning to look elsewhere for fun. But I knew that one day I'd be back.
Looking back, I think MASAKI just didn't work for me on two fronts; it was at the wrong stage of my life, and that I'm not a greatly creative person. I couldn't just make up a character about a wealthy businessman-turned wrestler and go along with it before I'd resort to the cheesy remarks that Dan/myself would have made in that situation. I e-fed because it gives me the chance to be me, just turned up tenfold, and I would have a problem being anyone else.
I don't regret being MASAKI, however. I think it was a breath of fresh air that I truly needed, and I got a good feud or two out of it. But I couldn't see myself being MASAKI for years and years. I just wonder what would have happened if I was writing continuously, if MASAKI would have done something big. He won the Entertainment Title in under a month, so maybe that roll could have continued to greater things.
Anyways, sorry for the long chapter. Next up, we head into 2007. There's a few controversies along the way to deal with, and a lot of broken attempts to get back into the e-fedding groove.
